Tag: Nongenetic Evolution

“To understand why a product is the way it is today, you need to learn about its evolutionary background.” Meet Huub Ehlhardt, an engineer with a PhD in product design. Huub believes that innovation is best not described as a sequence of disruptive inventions, but as a gradual evolution of products. Together with Arthur Eger, he wrote On the Origin of Products; The Evolution of Product Innovation and Design. Over the next few weeks, Huub takes us on an intellectual joyride on the origins of the word processor, LED lamp, e-bike and smartphone. Kicking off the series, we sat down with Huub to learn what he’s all about.

Feeding our decades old bananaphone kidsplay, Nokia just reintroduced their banana phone. Once again, this shows that Nature is the most successful product of our time. We call this phenomenon Bio-mimic-marketing: using images of nature to market a product. Peculiar image of the week.

The world is changing and it’s important that we evolve with it. The ECO Coin Award is our way of recognizing innovations and initiatives which help us adapt to our next nature. The nominees are all aiming to create a more humane and sustainable future for us all. Now, in the lead-up to the announcement of this year’s winner, we’re interviewing each of the three finalists to learn about their values, insights and visions for the future. This week, we spoke to Ritsert Mans, Dutch designer nominated in recognition of his unique creation: a wooden motorcycle running on algae oil.

What if your co-worker was a robot? Dutch startup Smart Robotics is a job agency for robots that allows you to hire a smart machine. This new species can learn a variety of tasks and be configured to your needs. Ready to get working?

The modern warehouse has come a long way since its earliest iterations at the beginning of the industrial revolution, where massive storage facilities were needed to accommodate the mechanically produced goods of the era. While warehouse management practices and processes have evolved with the time, they’ll need to maintain their adaptability and versatility to accommodate the onset of Industry 4.0.

For many people it’s hard to imagine going a day without a smartphone. We use them for everything: talking to friends, browsing the Internet, playing games, tracking fitness goals and much more. They’ve become almost a part of who we are. According to tech industry experts, however, the smartphone’s days are numbered and that number is lower than you might expect.

People used to consider the sun a god. Its energy fuels life as we know it. “And in the future, the sun will also fuel our cars”, that’s the premise of Dutch startup Lightyear, a new company specialized in solar powered electric cars.

While bringing tremendous benefits, air travel has a big environmental footprint. A Boeing 747, for instance, emits 92 kg of CO2 per hour. With about 8 million people flying on a daily basis, we need a healthier plan. Electric airplanes have good potential.

American service design company Ideo has taken the essence of on-demand economy at heart, presenting a vehicle with detail-designed services for the future of carpooling. It’s a car that runs on electricity, self driving on-demand and with endearing technology onboard.